A SKETCH OF FRANCIS SCOTT KEY, WITH 
A GLIMPSE OF HIS ANCESTORS 



F. S. KEY SMITH, LL.M. 



[Keprinted from the Records of the Columbia Historical Society, 
Washington, D. C. Vol. 11, 1909.] 



\ 



In Excnange 
E>. C. Pub- Ldb. 



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M 

A SKETCH OF FRANCIS SCOTT KEY, WITH 
A GLIMPSE OF HIS ANCESTORS.* 

By F. S. KEY SMITH, LL.M. 
(Read before the Society, May 12, 1908.) 

About the year 1726 Henry and Philip Key, sons 
of Richard and Mary Key, of St. Paul's Parish, 
Covent Garden, London, settled in America on the 
north bank of the Potomac river 'near a place since 
called Leonardtown. 

Henry died young, never marrying. Philip took 
up several large tracts of land throughout the then 
colony of Maryland, building a handsome brick resi- 
dence, near Leonardtown, and a brick church at 
Chaptico, St. Mary's County. 

Being twice married, his first wife was Susannah 
Gardiner, and his second, Theodosia Barton. By the 
first he had seven children, as follows : Richard 
Ward, Philip, Thomas, Francis, Edmund, John and 
Susannah Gardiner. Edmund studied law in Eng- 
land and later, upon his return to Maryland, became 
the attorney general of the province. 

Francis married Ann Arnold Ross, a daughter of 
John Ross who settled in Anne Arundel County near 
Annapolis in 1730. At the junction of the Severn 
River with Round Bay, to this day stands his large 
colonial house, named Belvoir. The walls are sixteen 
inches thick and the wide windows with their deep 
recesses extend nearly to the floor. General Wash- 
ington upon one occasion occupied one of the upper 
rooms. In the family graveyard upon the estate is 

* Copyright, 1908, by F. S. Key Smith. 

71 



72 Records of the Columbia Historical Society. 

buried Mrs. Ann Arnold Key. Her grave is marked 
with a plain slab inscribed 

"In memory of Mrs. Ann Arnold Key who departed this 
life January 5, 1811, in the eighty-fourth year of her age. ' ' 

Another grave stone bears this inscription: 

"In memory of two infant daughters of Henry and Eliza- 
beth Maynadier, one who died on the 19th day of September, 
1782, and the other on day of December, 1783." 

The graveyard is now cared for by the Maryland 
Society of the Colonel Dames. 

Francis Key and his wife, who was Ann Arnold 
Ross, had three children, John Ross Key, Philip 
Barton Key and Elizabeth Scott Key. Elizabeth 
married Colonel Henry Maynadier; Philip Barton 
married Ann Plater and John Ross married Ann 
Phoebe Dagworthy Carlton. John Ross, being the 
eldest, inherited the whole of his father's estate upon 
his dying intestate. However, he divided with his 
younger brother, and when his brother's property was 
confiscated because of his loyalty to England, he again 
divided with him, although he himself had been loyal 
to the American cause, fighting as a soldier in the 
Revolution. 

Upon the estate, Terra Rubra, in Frederick County, 
Maryland, which John Ross Key inherited from his 
father, Francis Scott Key and Ann Arnold Key were 
born. This Ann Arnold Key afterwards became the 
wife of Roger Brooke Taney, subsequently Secretary 
of the Treasury and Chief Justice of the United 
States Supreme Court. 

Francis Scott Key, author of "The Star Spangled 
Banner," was born on the ninth day of August, 1780, 
at Terra Rubra, as stated, where he was reared and 
spent his childhood. His life, while attending 



Smith: Sketch of Francis Scott Key. 73 

school and college, was spent with relatives in and 
near Annapolis. His grandmother, Mrs. Key, of 
Belvoir, with whom he spent much time, was totally 
blind, having lost her eyesight from fire when her 
father's house at Carpenter's point in Talbot County 
was burned. During his attendance at St. John's 
College, Annapolis, where he graduated, he resided 
with his great-aunt, Mrs. Upton Scott, who was 
Elizabeth Eoss. With Roger Brooke Taney, a fellow 
student, he read law in the office of Judge Jeremiah 
Townley Chase. In 1802 he married Mary Tayloe 
Lloyd, granddaughter of Edward Lloyd, royal gov- 
ernor of the colony from 1709 to 1714, and had eleven 
children— six boys and five girls— namely: Elizabeth 
Phoebe, Maria. Lloyd, Francis Scott, John Ross, Ann 
Arnold, Edward Lloyd, Daniel Murray, Philip Barton, 
Ellen Lloyd, Alice and Charles Henry. 

It is said Miss Lloyd frequently made curl papers 
of his love sonnets and took particular pains that he 
should know of it. He began the practice of law at 
Frederick, Maryland, in 1801, subsequently removing 
to the District of Columbia where he formed a 
partnership with his uncle, Philip Barton Key. Un- 
der Presidents Jackson and Van Buren, he was three 
times appointed United States District Attorney for 
the District of Columbia. 

He was a regular attendant at church, taking an 
active part in religious matters, becoming a vestry- 
man of St. John's Episcopal Church in Georgetown, 
where can be seen a mural tablet to the memory of 
a former rector, the Reverend Johannes I. Sayre, the 
inscription of which he composed. To the hym"^ 1 
he contributed the hymn "Lord with P" 
I'd Praise Thee." 

His whole life bears witness t( 



74 Records of the Columbia Historical Society. 

as a lawyer he was equalled by few and excelled by 
none, taking first rank among his contemporaries. 

As United States District Attorney for the District 
of Columbia he had occasion to demonstrate his fitness 
for the position, and it will be seen was not found 
wanting when weighed in the balance. At the funeral 
of Warren R. Davis, a member of Congress from 
South Carolina, a man concealed behind one of the 
large pillars of the east portico of the Capital fired 
at President Jackson, but before the assailant could 
fire a second shot he was overpowered and taken into 
custody. Carried before the Circuit Court of the 
United States for the District of Columbia the pris- 
oner was given a hearing. Mr. Key appeared on be- 
half of the government. Convinced that a criminal 
proceeding should be a prosecution, not a persecution, 
the care with which he conducted the examination 
prevented a miscarriage of justice, even removing a 
popular misbelief of a criminal conspiracy against 
the life of the President. 

The Harrison and Van Buren presidential contest 
in 1840 created much excitement and division in 
Georgetown and there was much spirit shown be- 
tween the Whigs and Democrats, resulting after 
General Harrison's inauguration, in a petition by its 
citizens to the President charging Robert White, the 
collector of the port, with the misuse of his office 
for political purposes, etc. The removal of White 
was asked and Henry Addison named for the place. 
A libel suit filed by White against those making the 
charges was the result. Mr. Key, Colonel William 
L Brent and his son Robert J. Brent represented the 
defendants being represented by General 
^ard L. Coxe, Joseph H. Bradley, 
Robert Auld. The Circuit Court 



Smith: Sketch of Francis Scott Key. 75 

of the District of Columbia, before which the case 
was tried, held the petition to the President a 
privileged communication and so could not be ad- 
mitted in evidence or read to the jury. This lost 
the case for the plaintiff, but Mr. Key carried it to 
the Supreme Court of the United States and reversed 
the judgment. 

About 1830 the Alexandria Canal Company, under 
authority conferred by act of Congress, undertook to 
construct across the Potomac River an aqueduct for 
the purpose of connecting with the Chesapeake and 
Ohio Canal, that Alexandria might use this waterway 
with Georgetown for transportation. In the con- 
struction of the necessary piers large cofferdams were 
built in the river into which much clay and gravel 
was dumped, much of which in one way or the other 
was spilt on the outside of the dams and washed down 
stream. The Potomac being a highway and used 
as such in those days a good deal more than now, 
the mayor and people of Georgetown, fearing, as they 
alleged, that the channel would be obstructed and 
navigation retarded, employed Mr. Key to apply to 
the court for an injunction enjoining the continuance 
of the work which they believed and termed a public 
nuisance. The case eventually reached the Supreme 
Court of the United Stages where it was ably argued 
and some very interesting and nice questions of law 
^raised. Among other things it was contended 11 t 
the act of Congress authorizing the construction of 
the aqueduct was unconstitutional --as under a com- 
pact between the states of Maryland anJ Virginia the 
citizens of Georgetown had a right of property in the 
free navigation of the river and could not be deprived 
thereof by an act of Congress. The case, however, 
was decided against the contention of Georgetown and 



J 6 Records of the Columbia Historical Society. 

the aqueduct was completed. The present highway 
bridge upon the site is popularly known by the name 
of the " Aqueduct bridge" to this day, although the 
old aqueduct bridge was removed more than twenty 
years ago. 

A case I recall, from tradition, was one in which 
Mr. Key established the legitimacy of a poor woman 
whom the avarice of man had caused to be attacked 
in order that another might gain property belonging 
to her. The case was fought back and forth through 
the courts for very many years. Although successful, 
his client passed away before her legitimacy was 
established. 

The last case to which I shall refer was one which 
grew out of the capture of a slave trader off the coast 
of Florida, then Spanish territory. A Spanish vessel 
named the ' ' Antelope, ' ' in the act of receiving a cargo 
of Africans, was captured on the coast of Africa by 
the "Arraganta, " a privateer manned in Baltimore. 
In charge of a prize crew from the "Arraganta," she 
was carried to the coast of Brazil and thence to the 
coast of Florida, where she was discovered hovering 
very near the coast of the United States, by the 
United States Revenue Cutter "Dallas." Supposing 
her to be either a pirate or engaged in smuggling 
slaves into tne United States, she was brought by 
the "Dallas" into the port of Savannah for adjudica- 
tion as lawful prize. On behalf of the subjects oj. 
their respective countries, to whom it was alleged the 
vessel and slaves belonged, the vice consuls of Spain 
and Portugal interposed claims. The United States, 
in the interest of humanity, opposed these claims, 
taking the position that the trade in which the vessel 
was engaged was in violation of the laws of the 
United States and as the vessel and her cargo were 



Smith: Sketch of Francis Scott Key. 77 

within the territorial jurisdiction of this country they 
were amenable to our laws. On the other hand, it 
was contended that the African slaves in the regular 
course of legitimate commerce had been acquired as 
property by the Spanish and Portuguese owners, and 
their restoration was demanded under the law of 
nations, and particularly under a treaty between the 
United States and Spain which provided that prop- 
erty rescued from pirates should be restored to the 
owner upon proof of property. As the founder of the 
African Colonization Society, Mr. Key's sympathy 
with the negro cause was well and favorably known. 
Mr. Wirt, the Attorney General, accordingly engaged 
him to assit the government in the prosecution of the 
case. Among the spectators in court was Governor 
Foote of Mississippi, who some years afterwards paid 
the following tribute to the speech of Mr. Key. 

"On this occasion he greatly surpassed the expectations of 
his most admiring friends. The subject was particularly 
suited to his habits of thought, and was one which had long 
enlisted, in a special manner, the generous sensibilities of his 
soul. It seems to me that he said all that the case demanded, 
and yet no more than was needful to be said; and he closed 
with a thrilling, and even an electrifying, picture of the 
horrors connected with the African slave trade which v ,.ad 
have clone honor to either a Pitt or a Wilberforce in their 
palmiest, days. " ' 

Alas! however, the court in an opinion written by 
the great Chief Justice, John Marshall, held, that as 
the traffic in which the Spanish vessel was engaged 
was not in violation of the laws of Spain the ship and 
her human cargo must, under our treaty, be restored 
to their owners, but the force and eloquence of Mr. 
Key's argument was acknowledged by the Chief 
Justice at the outset of his opinion in these words : 



78 Records of the Columbia Historical Society. 

"In examining claims of this momentous importance; 
claims in which the sacred rights of liberty and of property 
come in conflict with each other; which have drawn from the 
Bar a degree of talent and of eloquence worthy of the ques- 
tions that have been discussed; this court must not yield to 
feelings which might seduce it from the path of duty, but 
must obey the mandate of the law. ' ' 

While not taking any very active part in politics, 
nevertheless, when the good of a worthy cause de- 
manded his services he considered it his duty to take 
the stump and is known to have stumped not only 
Maryland, his native state, but Pennsylvania and 
Virginia. On such an occasion at Frederick, Mary- 
land, in paying a tribute to his country, he sounded 
a timely warning, in the following words which are 
even prophetic: 

"But if ever forgetful of her past and present glory, she 
shall cease to be 'the land of the free and the home of the 
brave,' and become the purchased possession of a company of 
stock jobbers and speculators, if her people are to become the 
vassals of a great moneyed corporation, and to bow down to 
her pensioned and privileged nobility : if the patriots who shall 
dare to arraign her corruptions and denounce her usurpations, 
are to be sacrificed upon her gilded altar ; such a country may 
ln^nish venal orators and presses but the soul of national 
poetry will ix j gone. That muse will, 'Never bow the knee 
in mammon's fane.' No, the patriots of bu^ii a land must 
hide their shame in her deepest forests, and her bards murt 
hang their harps upon the willows. Such a people, thus cor- 
rupted and degraded, 

' Living, shall forfeit fair renown, 
And, doubly dying shall go down, 
To the vile dust from whence they sprung, 
Unwept, unhonored and unsung.' " 

Perhaps the most important service ever rendered 
his country was in his mission to Alabama in the fall 



Smith: Sketch of Francis Scott Key. 79 

of 1833 where he was sent by President Jackson as 
the special representative of the United States to 
settle the dispute between the general government 
and the State of Alabama growing out of the gov- 
ernment's orders for the removal of settlers from the 
Creek Indian lands within the territorial limits of the 
State of Alabama. The United States, in the spring 
of 1832, made a treaty with the Creek Indians, under 
the terms of which the Indians ceded to the United 
States all their lands east of the Mississippi River. 
The treaty imposed upon the United States the duty 
of removal of all the settlers from the ceded territory, 
and the survey and location of the Indian reservations 
therein. 

The manner of removal the government found in 
an act of Congress, approved March 3, 1807, entitled 
"An Act to prevent settlements being made on lands 
ceded to the United States, until authorized by law." 
The act provided that intruders upon the public lands 
should be removed by the United States Marshal, 
aided by the military, if necessary, acting under the 
orders of the President. 

The ceded territory comprised nine southern 
counties of the State of Alabama, and in addition 
to the Indians, contained 1 population of nearly 
three thousand white persons, citizens of the State 
of Alabama. State and local governments were 
established and in each county judges, magistrates, 
sheriffs, notaries public, etc., had been appointed from 
among the settlers. Such was the situation when the 
United States Marshal for the southern district of 
Alabama acting upon instructions from the President, 
aided by United States troops, in the fall of 1833 
undertook the expulsion of the white settlers who 
having exchanged their means of transportation for 



80 Records of the Columbia Historical Society. 

implements of husbandry were without means to 
remove and, maintaining themselves and their families 
by the tillage of the soil, were fairly prosperous. 

They denied the right of the general government 
to remove them and were quick to resent the efforts 
made by the marshal for their removal being sup- 
ported by the then Governor of Alabama, Honorable 
John Gayle, who wrote the Secretary of War a 
strong letter of protest in their behalf arguing, 
among other things, that the enforcement of the 
President's orders, carrying with it, as it necessarily 
did, the expulsion of all the settlers without discrim- 
ination, would deprive the state of all means of en- 
forcing its laws within the territory, thereby render- 
ing the administration of justice and the suppression 
of crime impossible. The Secretary wrote a vigorous 
reply, stating that the right of the state to extend its 
jurisdiction over the ceded district was not ques- 
tioned, but the ownership of land and jurisdiction 
over it were distinct questions, and he met the gov- 
ernor's objection to the enforcement of the Presi- 
dent's orders with the suggestion that until the 
locations could be made under the treaty it would 
not be impracticable to attach the whole of the ceded 
I : itory to one or mare of the organized counties 
of the state and thus provide for the complete ex- 
ercise of both civil and criminal jurisdiction. 

The Honorable Clement C. Clay, then a representa- 
tive in Congress from Alabama, also wrote a letter 
to the Secretary of War, in behalf of the settlers. 
A fierce controversy arose which resulted in open 
resistance to the marshal and the United States 
troops, under command of Major James L. Mcintosh, 
stationed at Fort Mitchell, Alabama. Several towns 
were burned and a settler, Hardeman Owens, shot and 



Smith: Sketch of Francis Scott Key. 81 

killed by a soldier. Quickly the entire frontier was in 
a great state of excitement. Indictments were found 
against the deputy marshal, Lieutenant David Manning 
and three privates, charging them with the murder 
of Owens, but the sheriff was prevented from execut- 
ing the warrants of arrest for the soldiers, Major 
Mcintosh interposing, so that the warrants were 
returned into court indorsed, "Not served for fear 
of being killed," and the court requested that the 
governor send a sufficient force of militia to the 
scene to comand obedience to its orders. Governor 
Gale enclosed all the papers in a letter to the Secre- 
tary of War, requesting that the situation be called 
to the President's attention. 

Colonel J. J. Albert and Mr. James Bright were 
sent by the government to make the necessary surveys 
and locate the Indian reservations, being instructed 
to proceed with all possible dispatch, that the country 
lying outside the reservations might be released from 
the effect of the orders of removal. 

When the controversy was at its height the Secretary 
of War, at the direction of the President, wrote Mr. 
Key that it was the wish of the President that he visit 
the State of Alabama and examine into the cause of 
the trouble arising out of the government's instructions 
for the removal of intruders from the Indian lands. 
HJ3 commission gave him the broadest powers possi- 
ble and the United States Marshal, Colonel Mcintosh 
and other officers of the United States concerned with 
the removal of the settlers, were instructed to follow 
his advice in everything pertaining to their duty. He 
was to conduct the defense of all United States officers 
before both state and United States courts whenever 
it became necessary. And he was authorized to com- 
municate the tenor of his instructions to the Governor 

6 



82 Records of the Columbia Historical Society. 

of Alabama if lie deemed it advantageous. Arriving 
at Fort Mitchell on the eleventh day of November, 
1833, he immediately set about the accomplishment of 
the great and delicate task before him. Had such 
broad powers, at so critical a moment, been entrusted 
to one less capable what evil consequences might not 
have ensued it is impossible to say. But to his great 
credit it can be said he so conscientiously and diplo- 
matically managed the situation that within twenty 
days from the date of his arrival he was enabled to 
report to the Secretary of War that a settlement could 
no doubt be effected in accordance with the wishes of 
the President, and on December 18, less than six weeks 
from his arrivel, he set out upon his return to his 
home in the District of Columbia, having accomplished 
the object of his mission without asking permission 
to concede a single point in negotiating the settlement, 
and without having once to resort to any coercive 
measures whatsoever. 

The negotiation with the governor brought him fre- 
quently a guest to the home of the latter, and Mrs. 
Gayle speaks very charmingly and interestingly of 
him. In one instance she says : 

"Francis Scott Key, the District Attorney for the District 
of Columbia, is here at present for the purpose of assisting to 
settle the Creek controversy. He is very pleasant, intelligent 
you at once perceive. His countenance is not remarkab^ 
when at rest, but as soon as he lifts his eyes, usually fixed 
upon some object near the floor, the man of sense, of fancy, 
and the poet is at once seen. But the crowning trait of his 
character, I have just discovered — he is a Christian." 

As the author of "The Star Spangled Banner" he 
had long been known in Alabama, as elsewhere, hence 
now that he was present in person many of the young 
ladies of Tuscaloosa vied with each other in concocting 



Smith: Sketch of Francis Scott Key. 83 

clever schemes by which they might be the recipients 
of an original verse or so, for their albums. 

The circumstances under which ' ' The Star Spangled 
Banner" was written are too familiar to justify a de- 
tailed account at this time. At the instance of the citi- 
zens of upper Marlboro, Maryland, he had secured the 
permission of the government, together with letters 
accrediting him to the British officers, for his visiting 
the British fleet to intercede for the release of Dr. 
William Beane, a respected physician of Marlboro, 
who had been taken prisoner by the British, after the 
battle of Bladensburg, in their retreat to their ships 
in the Patuxent River. The fleet had since, however, 
weighed anchor and dropped down the Patuxent to 
the Chesapeake and its destination was not known. 

Deeming it most expedient to go to Baltimore, and 
from that port, together with Colonel John S. Skin- 
ner, United States Agent for the Parol of Prisoners, 
set sail with the hope of overtaking the fleet, Mr. 
Key, sending his family to his father's estate, Terra 
Ruba, left his home in Georgetown for Baltimore on 
the morning of the fifth of September, 1814. Those 
were the days, it should be remembered, before "the 
advent of steam and electric railroads with their rapid 
flying trains and cars, and such a trip consumed the 
best part of a day; while a sail to the mouth of the 
Patuxent River from Baltimore, a distance of a hun- 
dred miles, required even more time, so the hardships 
of his journey should not be underestimated. Upon 
meeting with the British they were courteously re- 
ceived by Admiral Cochrane on board his flag ship 
"The Suprise." It was with no little difficulty, how- 
ever, that Mr. Key succeeded in securing the British 
admiral's consent to release Dr. Beane. Although 
eventually successful he was informed that they would 



84 Records of the Columbia Historical Society. 

have to be detained until after a contemplated attack 
on Baltimore— not an agreeable surprise we may well 
believe. Accordingly they were brought back to Balti- 
more with the British fleet, and upon reaching there 
on the morning of September 10, 1814, were trans- 
ferred to their own little vessel, the United States 
Cartel ship "Minden, " where they were detained 
under guard of British marines, and anchored in a 
position from which they could readily witness the 
preparations for an attack upon their native land. 
Their anxiety and misgivings, intensified by the recent 
horrors of the burning of Washington, after the total 
rout of the militia at Bladensburg, cannot be described, 
if even by the most astute conceived, as now from their 
vantage point they were enabled to compare with 
accuracy the relative strength of their country's 
defense. 

On the morning of September 13, as the British 
army, nine thousand strong, under General Ross, 
moved upon Baltimore along the road leading from 
North Point, the fleet, forming a semicircle off Fort 
McHenry at a distance of about two and a half miles, 
opened fire upon its little garrison of brave de- 
fenders. Mr. Key's little American party, thus com- 
pelled to witness the right from within the enemy's 
lines, helplessly stood upon the deck of their vessel 
unable to assist in the defense of their country and 
fearing every moment least they should see the fort 
defenses reduced and the land forces repelled; the 
city surrendered or even worse, abandoned, as Wash- 
ington had been, only a few weeks before, to the 
plunder and rapine of the remorseless enemy. As the 
day passed they took hope from the stubborn resist- 
ance of their countrymen and their desire for news of 
the battle caused them to watch patiently with untiring 



Smith: Sketch of Francis Scott Key. 85 

interest the flag of their country, which in the autumn 's 
breeze defiantly waved from the ramparts of the fort 
before the mouths of the English guns. As the last 
rays of that day's mellow twilight kissed it a fond 
farewell, their hearts also sank beneath the horizon 
of hope, for they little dreamed at morn it would still 
be there, the sublime inspiration for a nation's song, 
proudly waving "O'er the land of the free and the 
home of the brave," christened forever, "The Star 
Spangled Banner." 

Not being able longer to discern or know anything 
of the battle, his comrades, worn and fatigued, retired 
below. Not so with him— an instrument in the hands 
of destiny, his sleepless anxiety knew no rest. About 
two o'clock the British with about twelve hundred 
picked men, under cover of the darkness, attempted 
to steal past the fortifications and, after effecting a 
landing, by a flanking movement, attack the garrison 
in the rear. However well planned their scheme may 
have been, they figured without regard for the alert- 
ness and bravery of men fighting in defense of their 
homes. Promptly discovered, when well within range 
a galling fire was opened upon them, raking them fore 
and aft in terrible slaughter. Their vessels, hastily 
closing in to protect the disordered retreat which fol- 
lowed, opened full broadsides upon the little fortress 
which, responding with all her batteries, made a terri- 
fic explosion. 

Suddenly the great commotion ceased. Only the 
shieks and groans of the wounded and dying could be 
heard, and finally even these were hushed as the still- 
ness of the night gained its reign. The suspense for 
the next few hours before the break of day we will not 
attempt to picture— it is impossible. His anxious soul 
asked the vital question uppermost in his heart and 
mind in these words: 



86 Records of the Columbia Historical Society. 

"0 say, can you see, by the dawn's early light, 

What so proudly we hailed, at the twilight's last gleaming? 
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight, 

O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming, 
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, 
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there; 
say, does that Star Spangled Banner yet wave 
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave ? " 

As the same sun again sank beneath the western 
horizon of that victorious city, nearly thirty years 
later, on the eleventh of January, 1843, at the home 
of his eldest daughter, Mrs. Charles Howard, in Balti- 
more, Mr. Key breathed his last. 

The Honorable Hugh L. Legare, Attorney General 
of the United States in announcing his death to the 
Supreme Court of the United States on behalf of the 
bar of the court paid him the following tribute : 

"My acquaintance with the excellent man, whose sudden 
death in the midst of a career of eminent usefulness, public 
and private, and of the most active devotion to the great 
interest of humanity, we are now called upon to deplore, was 
until a very recent period extremely limited. But short as 
was my personal intercourse with him, it was quite long 
enough to endear him to me in a peculiar manner, as one of 
the moHt gentle, guileless, amiable and attractive beings with 
whom, in an experience sufficiently diversified, it has been my 
good fortune to act. Ardent, earnest, indefatigable in the 
pursuit of his objects, and the performance of his duties, elo- 
quent as the advocate of whatever course he embraced, D 
his heart was true and his sympathy cordial and susceptible; 
decided in his conduct without one particle of censoriousness 
or ascerbity towards others; with the blandest manners, the 
most effectionate temper, the most considerate toleration of 
dissent, the most patient acquiescence in the decisions of 
authority, even where he had the most strenuously exerted 
himself to prevent them, his life seemed to me a beautiful pat- 
tern of all that is lovely, winning and effective in the charity 
of a christian gentleman." 



Smith: Sketch of Francis Scott Key. 87 

Mr. Justice Thompson, in the absence of the Chief 
Justice, Mr. Key's brother-in-law, replied in part as 

p ollows : 

"Mr. Key's talents were of a very high order. His mind 
was stored with legal learning, and his literary taste and 
attainments were highly distinguished, and added to these, 
was a private character which holds out to the Bar a bright 
example for imitation. The loss of such a man cannot but 
be sincerely deplored." 

His remains were first placed in the Howard vault, 
in Greenmount Cemetery, Baltimore, but subsequently 
were removed to Mt. Olivet Cemetery near Frederick, 
Maryland^ where they have since lain beside those of 
his wife. Near by his grave from a tall flag pole ever 
floats an American flag; and through the patriotic 
efforts of the ladies of Maryland a handsome bronze 
monument now marks his last resting place. In the 
presence of these the pilgrim and patriot pausing 
with eyes uplifted to heaven, may exclaim with genu- 
ine sincerity: 

At rest beneath the azure sky, 

Here lies a loyal son, 
Who's gone to meet his God on h'gh, 

His duty here well done. 
No truer heart qas lain at rest, 

Or was there e'er one born 
Upon our Country's soil most blest, 

Than his whose now has gone. 

Those stars and stripes his mem'ry bear 

As long as they remain, 
And through all ages shall declare 

His loved and honored name. 
The massive walls of the old fort, 

A monument grand to fame, 
Remind us of the battle fought, 

And of the patriot's name. 



88 Records of the Columbia Historical Society. 

'Twas there he watched them through the fight, 

Upon the rampart's far, 
Until the darkness closed from sight 

Each floating stripe and star. 
And when at morn, kissed by the light, 

They still waved proudly high, 
His heart was filled with wild delight, 

He knew his God was nigh. 

Then as the day broke bright and clear, 

The battle's tempest ceased, 
No longer was there need to fear — 

Victory, all released. 
He'd seen the struggle through the night, 

And heard the cannon's roar, 
But the flag, which darkness hid from sight, 

Still waved o'er freeman's shore. 
" 'Twas the Star Spangled Banner, long may it wave 
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave." 



